Kogi ACN calls for council election in January

The Kogi State Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) yesterday urged Governor Idris Wada to ensure that local government election is conducted in the state in January.

In a statement in Abuja by its Chairman, Haddy Ametuo, the party said the recent ward and local government congresses of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state contradicted the position of the State Independent Electoral Commission (KSIEC), which called for the postponement of the election because of insecurity.

The statement reads: “Our local governments have suffered enough exploitation. The state government should urgently revisit the issue of the local government election by conducting it not later than January 2013 so that these liaison officers can leave the local governments alone.

“Their reign is full of unpaid salaries and allowances, underdevelopment, non-adherence to due process, non-transparent administration and arrogance.

“All this is due to bad governance of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which has consistently refused to impact positively on the lives of the people.”

ACN criticised Wada for allegedly hijacking local government allocations.

The party said the governor’s action has stalled development at the third tier of government.

It noted that local government employees were owed backlog of salaries due to non-release of statutory monthly allocations by the state government.

The ACN also faulted Wada for refusing to pay former political office holders their severance allowances.

It said: “Captain Wada should leave local government allocations alone because the liaison officers/caretaker chairmen have continued to tell the public about the governor’s exploitation of the local government allocation.”

The party explained that during the final days of the former Governor Ibrahim Idris administration, there were complaints on severance allowances of former political office holders in the local governments who served from 2004 to 2007.

ACN said the former governor had directed that the allowances of elected and appointed cabinet members of the 21 local governments be paid.

“It is rather unfortunate that he obdurately later ignored the payment of the allowances to the affected officers,” the party said.

It alleged that Wada has “continued to feign ignorance” of the “ugly development even after several complaints from these victims of injustice”.

He added: “It is the right of these former elected and appointed officers to be paid their severance allowances as provided for by the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC).